A month before spring arrives outdoors, I found it indoors amid the tulips and foxglove at Marjorie McNeely Conservatory in Como Park.

I took my 8-year-old daughter to opening weekend of the annual Spring Flower Show and inhaled the humidity. The smell of damp earth was almost as glorious as the sight of thousands of flowers.

The conservatory presents five seasonal shows every year, and the spring show is my favorite. It arrives like the first robin, a tantalizing promise of what's to come.

Spring is a tease in Minnesota. It's a hopeful notion that we long for and then, blink, the crocus and lilac are gone and the mosquitoes have arrived. Anything I can do to get a jump on the season is worth it.

Tulips accented with violas and hyacinth bring spring to the Sunken Garden at Como Park Conservatory in St. Paul on Tuesday, March 25, 2014. (Pioneer Press: Scott Takushi)

Judging from the crowds last weekend, others are weary of winter, too. On our walk through the misty fern room on the way to see the flowers, we met three generations of the Kiemele family, pausing for a snack on a stone bench.

"We were desperate to be around something green and living," said Carol Kiemele of Mendota Heights, who years ago brought her children to the conservatory and now is delighted to introduce it to her 2-year-old granddaughter, Claire Hegg. The family had visited a couple of times this winter and had come back for the spring bulbs.

YEARS OF ABUNDANCE

The conservatory celebrates its 100th anniversary next year. Built in 1915, at the tail end of the era of the Victorian "crystal palaces," the glass-domed public greenhouse has showcased flowers since it opened, starting with a fall show of fashionable potted chrysanthemums.

Other seasonal flower shows were added. In 1927, the changing displays found a permanent home with the opening of the Sunken Garden, which fills one of the two glass wings that extend on either side of the 65-foot central dome.

"The Sunken Garden's first shows were all about floral abundance," write Leigh Roethke and Bonnie Blodgett in "Jewel of Como," their 2009 history of the conservatory.

More than 5,000 people attended the Sunken Garden's opening, and the conservatory extended hours to 9 p.m. for three weeks to accommodate the crowds.

Subsequent shows often were lavish. The spring 1939 show included a thatched English cottage nestled in the corner, and the fall show in 1968 featured a Japanese theme with a wood footbridge.

This year's spring flower show was designed by staff horticulturist Elyse Vymazal, who was inspired, in part, by a visit to the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew outside of London, where she noted violas tucked under masses of tulips.

I was a bit surprised at my daughter's keen interest in the flowers. At the doorway of the Sunken Garden, she grabbed a card with a half dozen flower photos from a rack by the door and we slipped into the loose crowd that was making a slow circuit of the room.

We walked down the five stone steps and followed the path, admiring symmetrical beds of yellow-and-maroon tulips that flanked the center pool.

"Baby hyacinth," exclaimed my daughter, glancing at her photo card and pointing to a row of buds just pushing up from their broad leaves. "They're so cute."

In a week or so, they will be in full bloom, along with the daffodils. Toward the end of the show, the hydrangeas will come on strong.

"But they seem to be coming on now. Sometimes, it takes a lot of sunny weather to get plants to grow out of their weakened state."

My daughter and I admired pink calla lilies rising from the pond in pots. I took my daughter's photo in front of a magnolia tree that sported big fuzzy buds and pink flowers but no leaves.

We stopped to smell the yellow freesias, trying to locate the source of the pervasive sweet smell.

"I think it's coming from over there," suggested a man next to me, pointing to a clump of Asiatic lilies. He was right. The fragrance drifted off the lilies like a cloud from a perfume counter.

MOMENTS OF CONTENTMENT

Before we had left home, my daughter had reminded me to bring coins. So, I had a pocket full of pennies for her to toss into the fountain in the Palm Dome.

Waiting for my daughter to make her wishes gave me time to admire the bronze fountain sculpture -- a slim woman caught leaping from the top of a small wave. It was created by American artist Harriet W. Frishmuth, a student of Rodin's. Her companion is perched in the pool in the Sunken Garden with four frogs at her feet.

"I like the spitting frogs," said my daughter, and then asked, "Why are statues always naked?"

We finished our hourlong visit with a walk through the North Garden, a tropical paradise that fills the other wing of the conservatory. It was like strolling through the kitchen. We saw avocado and cardamom trees, black pepper bushes and sugar cane.

And we looked at the people. Families straight from church strolled through in their Sunday best. Young parents guided toddlers by the hand and pushed strollers heaped with winter parkas.

People of all ages read books on benches tucked amid the foliage and flowers. An elderly man in a gray cardigan leaned against a stone wall to take photos of the lilies, and two teenage girls took photos of each other.

During winter's last grasp, they were all enjoying what, in the introduction to "Jewel of Como," nursery owner Gordie Bailey describes as "the poor man's trip to Florida."

Tip: Spring Fling weekend from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. this weekend includes games, gardener talks, story time and craft activities.

Don't miss: Macy's Flower Show. This year's theme is "The Secret Garden: Gardens by Bachman's." The show is free and open during store hours through April 6 at Macy's, 700 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis.

Maja Beckstrom can be reached at 651-228-5295.

Rachel Wesche, left, of Minneapolis and her sons George, 1 and Henry, 3, get acquainted with Caroline Carver, 2, and mother, Elizabeth, of St. Paul at the Sunken Garden on Tuesday. (Pioneer Press: Scott Takushi)